Your commentary about the immunosuppression produced by high dose abxs is spot on. A study was undertaken by Sandler (2000) which showed that high dose vancomycin temporarily reversed autism but only for a short period while the abxs were being taken and the children relapsed once the vancomycin was stopped. We actually did this therapy with Jason but got no positive response, ether transient or permanent.

This suggests his pathogen load was so high that he could not even get a temporary benefit and that his course of treatment on the MP will need to be longer than most.

The Sandler data suggests your commentary about immunosuppression goes beyond mere speculation. The Sandler study is yet another pointer to the validity of the MP view of autism.

I note that vancomycin is not a beta-lactam antibiotic but I understand it attacks bacterial cell walls. Would vancomycin therefore also cause bacteria to change to more pernicious L-forms as beta-lactam abxs do?

The long term effect of the vancomycin on the kids could have been to increase the ‘persister’ numbers and make the Th1 pathogens more virulent, as you describe in your biofilm piece which I found very informative indeed.

The hypothesis being tested by Sandler was that clostridia bacteria could cause autism since these were found to be in excessive numbers in the stools of ASD kids and the ‘regressive’ autism of the kids studied followed a course of abxs which was thought to wipe out other bacteria that compete with bugs such as clostridia difficille. Regressive ASD also seemed to follow abx-induced diarrhoea signalling major gastrointestinal flora disturbance – see Finegold (2002).

The idea was that that the toxins produced by clostridia species in the gut at an early age could impact the developing brain.

My own child’s very obvious signs of autism appeared to follow a double course of beta-lactam abxs to treat OM at age 18 months or thereabouts (as I have posted on the AUTISM forum on the MP site). He developed abx-induced diarrhoea – a possible sign of clostridia difficille infection – so he appeared to have the potential to be a vancomycin responder.

Having read your biofilm piece, it now seems more likely that his OM was actually a biofilm L-form infection made worse by the standard beta-lactam regime of penicillin.

I take it that the bugs in the ear or respiratory passages can travel from there to the brain which is a different model to that proposed by Sandler et al where the source of the problem is seen to be the gut. Jason’s OM did resolve but he has always been plagued by respiratory illness, such as nasal congestion (until now). He has not had much OM since infancy, to the extent we know.

I am wondering if a lot of regressive autism is brought on, if not caused, by OM infection in the same way you describe bugs in the mouth travelling to the brain of demented adults who have had their teeth removed. ASD kids are administered more abxs that normal kids (I can track down the research on this) and ASD, especilly more severe forms, shows up very early on in life when abxs are freely given for OM and other respiratory infections. I am wondering if this is more than just coincidence or just another risk factor. My Jason, like most ASD kids, had more than his fair share of penicillin-based abxs.

Dr Andrew Wakefield, who has been villified by the medical establishment for qerying whether vaccines cause gastro disease and autism, did have one child in his initial study whose ASD was preceded by an ear infection rather than a vaccine shot.

All this is to suggest that medicos need to treat abxs with extreme caution and need to ensure there is no underlying Th1 infection or potential Th1 infection, perhaps by D blood testing, especially if the child has been formula fed.

I am less sure about your speculations about the effect of DHA and ARA on temporarily inhibiting the development of ASD and causing it to increase at a later time. To my knowledge, most ASD sufferers are diagnosed early on and I doubt that a child that is formula fed with a DHA/ARA fortified version would be diagnosed as ASD at a later age after a period of immunosuppression when behaviour appears normal. It might be that they are diagnosed with some other Th1 illness as an older child.

I note that the Schultz study included children 2-18 years so any later or delayed emenegence of ASD would have been captured in the ASD cases reported. Hence, the reported reduction in ASD cases from fortified formula would seem to be a bona fide conclusion, setting aside the rather crude methodology, such as internet-based reporting by parents. This would seem to suggest that the fatty acids could have some beneficial effect.

Cheers
John

You’ve certainly done your homework. Why am I not surprised to learn that a study has connected formula feeding with autism? Infants consuming formula are getting a steady supply of an immunosuppressive secostoroid….what else can be expected? Especially since I am quite convinced that autism is a Th1 disease.

At Karolinka a woman presenting a poster next to mine (from the NIH) came over gushing about the fact that her research has shown that high dose antibiotics can take the “edge” off autism, allowing children with the disease to become somewhat more stable. Of course they never get better. Immediately the word “immunosuppresion!” popped into by head, as that is clearly all the high-dose antibiotics are doing. But if immunosuppression can temporarily curb autistic tendencies, then autism is almost certainly a bacterial illness or at least involves the Th1 pathogens to a large extent.

In any case, I did some investigative work on DHA and ARA fatty acids. Turns out they are polyunsaturated omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids that are chemically synthesized. Well, since vitamin D is the primary source used to derive the omega fatty acids, I’ll bet you a million bucks that DHA and AHA fatty acids contain vitamin D.

So I’m guessing that when the fatty acids are added to formula the immunosuppression experienced by the infant becomes even greater. Then, when doctors check in with them a while later, they still may be immunosuppressed to some degree and be described as “in better shape.” Of course the opposite is true and I would expect them to suffer from a more severe case of autism in the coming years.

At least that’s my take on what’s probably going on.

Best,

Amy

The full text study article does not reveal very much about autism and breast feeding or mental disorder more generally and breast feeding.

I suspect such children would have been excluded from the study since any severely disabled child would not be able to complete the IQ tests. I also have doubts whether Belarus would have schools or classes for severely disabled children and these children may be cared for in settings other than schools, perhaps they are kept at home.

The best way to assess whether formula feeding ’causes’ autism is to directly survey ASD children and find the incidence of formula feeding. It would be interesting to disaggregate the ASD group into Asberger types and degrees of impairment to see if there are different or stronger relations with formula feeding.

I have since found that such studies have been done and it has been shown that formula feeding increases the odds of an ASD child. Most recently, Shultz (2006 – see http://www.internationalbreastfeedingjournal.com/content/1/1/16) has verified this. He also found that formula fortified with the fatty acids DHA and ARA reduced the incidence of ASD a lot. However, a child that regresses to ASD after a period of normal development is still at an increased risk of becoming autistic if he/she is formula fed with DHA and ARA added but is at a much lower risk than if fed with formula without DHA and ARA.

From an MP point of view, formula feeding is another risk factor in causing autism but this, of course, is because of vitamin D being added. Shultz suggests DHA and ARA have immune system enhancing properties which prevents ASD developing. It is considered to be protective in breast milk and if added to formula (though to a lesser extent). I note that when added to formula, DHA and ARA did not eliminate the risk of ASD developing as ASD children who developed ASD after a period of normal development were more likely to have been formula fed (including with DHA and ARA added) than if they were breast fed.

However, added DHA and ARA did reduce the risk. Could DHA and ARA somehow offset the immunosuppressive effect of vitamin D that is added to formula in some way? As it happens, my boy was bottle fed and I suspect without added DHA and ARA as this was only added to formulas in the US from 2002. However, I wonder if the DHA added comes from fish and whether vitamin D levels have actually gone up in formulas since 2002?

The Shultz study suggest some formulas are worse than others in contributing to the development of ASD. Of course, we think formula feeding is not the sole factor involved in causing autism. Other probably more important factors risk factors include the health of the mother (whether she is Th1 sick), the over-use of beta-lactam antibiotics, the extent of (L-form) contaminated vaccines, sun exposure and post-utero exposure to Th1 pathogens from other family members.

A good study would be to see how strong is the correlation between blood D levels and ASD.

John

I see what you mean. Rather than confirming that the breast fed infants are “smarter”, it would be interesting if the researchers phrased the issue the other way around by asking, “Are the formula fed infants less intelligent?” The reason being is that the breast fed infants could have levels of intelligence that are simply normal, while the formula fed babies could have impaired intelligence levels indicative of several mental disorders including autism.

When it comes down to it, how has our medical system determined the “normal” IQ range for a 3-year-old when so many infants are given vitamin D starting at birth and the mother is often supplementing with vitamin D during and after pregnancy? Not to mention the fact that many infants already harbor the Th1 pathogens (that probably create substances that block the VDR) in the womb and at birth. These realities suggest that what is currently considered to be the “healthy” IQ range for the average 3-year-old is probably lower than it should be.

I am not familiar with data on expected IQ levels for young children so it’s hard for me to tell if any of the children in the study have low IQs that might correlate with the onset of a mental illness. However I’ll send the full text of the article to you via private email so you can look over the data.

Best,

Amy

From my point of view, it would be very interesting to get behind the large numbers of children investigated to see if there is data on children with very low IQs which could be a proxy for autism and/or other very intellectually disabling disorders. Perhaps it could be shown that the incidence of children with very low IQs is much higher for children that are formula fed vis-a-vis breast fed, even higher than possibly more subtle differences (though significant) reported in the study abstract acorss all the children.

Do you have access to the full text of the study?

Given our interest in looking at autism as a Th1 disease, this data could be very useful.

Presumably the data would not distinguish between ASD and other children. Given the large numbers involved, there would seem to be potential to study ASD children.

I note from the abstract that the improvement in verbal IQ (reading and writing) from breast feeding was greater than the improvement in IQ overall. This might be drawing a long bow but a weakness in reading and writing seems to me to suggest a particular weakness in language skills which, of course, is a hallmark of ASD. Autistics especially suffer more in this area than in other areas of intellectual activity.

Put simply, the relative weakness in language-based intellectual activity observed across all the children studied could be a pointer to ASD being caused, at least in part, by formula feeding and fortified vitamin D therein.

John

Rather chilling thought.

Good point. It is quite possible that after the breast-feeding period ended (is that around 1.5 years?) all the children were consuming vitamin D fortified milk. First off, that makes me wonder if all of them haven’t been cognitively affected to some degree, even those who were originally breast fed.

But I do feel that the formula fed babies scored lower on tests etc. because they were given extra vitamin D during what I consider to be the most delicate period of life. Take a look at the following article:

“Babies and Bacteria: How pathogens affect an infant during the first weeks of life”

http://bacteriality.com/2007/10/17/infants/

The piece describes how the adaptive immune system in infants takes several weeks to kick in. So a baby is much more unprotected from infection in the days and weeks following birth, until it starts producing antibodies.

Unfortunately, babies fed formula during that delicate time are probably passed around the whole family, where they can more easily pick up bacteria from other family members. Also, if they were passed any pathogens in the womb, those bacterial species probably get a head start on their quest to block the VDR and possibly other receptors.

Best,

Amy

I’ll assume we can assume that these higher-scoring babies got D in their milk after breast-feeding, for a period probably 3X longer than breast milk. How does this affect your hypothesis? Do you ascribe a higher importance to initial D avoidance due to brain formation and growth in the early, formative years?

Do we know anything about the D supplementation of these babies post breast feeding until the 6.5 years when testing was conducted? Presumably they “got milk” and as you point out, its very hard to find milk without D supplementation.

Phil

I’ve long suspected that formula was a big contributor to the Th1-based cognitive symptoms I’ve had since childhood. I’m glad that Dr. Marshall has shown that the brain heals along with the rest of the body as the CWD bacterial load is brought down.